Nicole A. Corley, Ph.D.

Nicole Corley, Ph.D. joined the faculty at the VCU School of Social Work as an Assistant Professor in August of 2017. Her work is primarily focused on centering and honoring the taken-for-granted knowledges of Black students and Black “single” mothers. Using qualitative research methods, her work explores resourcefulness, resistance, and the impact of racial socialization to better understand the academic experiences of Black students and their families. By amplifying their voices and perspectives, her scholarship endeavors to help disrupt the racialized, deficit-informed misorientations on adverse outcomes toward an acknowledgment of their assets, strengths, and capabilities.

By challenging dominant assumptions that have misrepresented the experiences of Black students and mothers, Corley hopes her work and teaching has both a liberatory and transformative impact. Within the field of social work, specifically, her goal is to contribute to the development of more culturally-informed and culturally-responsive interventions and practice methods that address systemic inequities impacting Black student achievement and Black family wellbeing, overall.

Corley is currently exploring the use of arts-based methods as a system of tools to bring awareness to the conditions creating and perpetuating oppression and as a strategy to promote social change.